Thoughts and dreams, both originating in the mind, share characteristics which for many purposes may make them indistinguishable. In light of this, the significance of subconscious thought, including but not limited to dreams and daydreams, as applied in relation to a dreamer's life, has been clearly established in the psychology community. Therefore, for the purposes of the prevent invention, thought can include dreams and daydreams, and dreams can include thought and daydreams. There are structured attempts at dream analysis which have been discussed by those in the field of psychology. Researchers such as Freud and Jung have looked to dreams as important elements in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological illnesses. The foundations they provided, along with subsequent developments by others are certainly meaningful, despite the many controversies and inconsistencies which exist. In general, however, the typical analysis methods are vague and complex, based on opinion as much as on science. In addition, the awareness and application of these ideas is limited to rather small groups of “experts”. Most people have little interaction with these “experts”, and are largely unaware of their body of knowledge.
Apart from the specialized field of dream research, personal dream interpretation and application is performed by the masses in a largely unstructured manner, without serious foundations in psychology or analysis. This informal analysis may present itself in the form of conversations or other interactions between people, or may evolve in the private contemplations of an individual. However, there exists no formal means by which quantitative analysis, tracking and storage can be performed. Consequently, any analysis is limited by the individual's memory, analysis ability and ability to manage an ad-hoc recollection of their past dreams. Generally, people do not apply mathematical methodologies and tools to the processing of their dream content (e.g. statistical analysis). Currently there is no known application of modeling and analyzing dream information based on the mathematics of normed linear spaces. As such, there is no reliance on state-theoretic or digital signal processing concepts for any known type of dream analysis.
Literature suggests methodologies by which people informally track their dreams over time by writing them in a notebook or using word processing equipment to record dreams. This approach is a personal means of dream interpretation and application, and does have merit. However, these methods are limited in at least three major ways. First, keeping written or computer records of dreams does not provide the proper structure to allow formal mathematical methodologies to be applied to the analysis. For example, it would be virtually impossible for a person to correlate the content of their dream with the complete real-life past history of themselves or others. Second, currently available or generic computer applications do not provide a framework by which an organized approach to the entirety of (a) dream entry, (b) storage and retrieval, (c) analysis, (d) processing and/or (e) the linking of all such elements can be achieved. Third, personal analysis is initially devoid of all connection to the collective meanings of the world or is based solely on the dreamer's knowledge of our world. Any interpretation or benefit from dream analysis is necessarily limited to the dreamer's own abilities as they perform the analysis independent of the knowledge of others, or only to the extent that they are made aware of.
This last deficiency can be addressed through use of one of the many commercially available books on dream interpretation. These books attempt to apply a collective knowledge of society, culture or life to the interpretation of an individual's unique dream content and allow an untrained person to associate a specific environmental, cultural, or life meaning to specific dream content. However, these books are likely to be tainted with an “expert's” flawed viewpoints or unscientific principles such as the zodiac, astrology and mythology.
While properly constructed books can provide a starting point for dream analysis, they have many shortcomings. First, they are static in representing the world through their content. As environments, cultures and experiences change, elements of the book become obsolete. There are no means for real-time tracking of these things. Further, books do not allow a progression of a dreamer's awareness to influence the book's content. As people associate dream content to unique elements of their lives, there exists no means to update the book to provide a representation of individual users. This philosophy applies a one-book-works-for-all approach, which promotes the conformity of an individual's uniqueness to an accepted, yet flawed body of knowledge. In general, such overconstrained problems have no solution, but at best just try to minimize the errors which are necessarily present. A further disadvantage is the lack of a means by which the experience of people using the book can influence the contents of the book. Such a capability is a requirement for modeling the collective knowledge of society, as the person using the book is a member of our society, and must be included if the book is to provide a complete representation of such. Finally, as described above, the use of dream interpretation books does not support structuring of dream histories of individuals or groups of people to perform advanced analysis and processing of data.
When considering the field of psychology and the attempts to practically represent it in the form of books, a final weakness of current methodologies is evident. There exists no definitive means by which a person may establish the qualifications of an authority to correctly interpret dreams or apply them to any end. In addition, it is widely accepted that it is not possible for a given person to completely understand the dreams of another (U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,214 to Pavis 1978). A dream interpretation “expert”, if not the person having the dream, is not completely aware of all elements of the dreamer's mind, experiences, and existence. Thus, they are blind to certain (most likely quite large) subsets of the dreamer's existence. If the dreams of an individual, over the population, are a function of any and all elements of a person's mind and experiences, a dream interpretation “expert” will fail to consider and address certain elements in their interpretation, and thus will be incorrect in their analysis. Because all people, things and even perceptions of identical events are different, there exists no person other than the dreamer themselves who can hope to achieve the true interpretation of a dream. As such, use of a book written by an “expert” is a flawed approach to dream interpretation.
As for consultation with psychology experts, there exists a path by which the expert may learn from the dreamer through personal interactions. Again, it is clear in this case that the expert is not the one having the dream. The expert's decisions as uniquely related to the dreamer, are limited by: (1) the capabilities of the expert in determining relevant information from the dreamer's mind, (2) the capabilities in information exchange between the dreamer and the expert, (3) the willingness of the dreamer to reveal personal information, (4) the expert's analysis abilities, and (5) the other imperfections of the expert (i.e. the doctor is not necessarily more healthy or more capable than the patient). As a result of the practicalities of (1), (2) and (3), the expert will never know the complete composition and make-up of an individual's mind and personal history. Complete interpretation without complete knowledge of the world and the individual's unique experiences is impossible because an individual's dream is created by that specific individual, and is a function of that individual's unique experiences and history. The expert's knowledge of our world is most likely based on the books described above, and thereby shares the same limitations. Furthermore, because of the difficulties or impossibilities in communicating both the concrete and abstract elements of one's mind and unique experiences (i.e. the dreamer's reality), dream interpretation by a psychology expert will fail to achieve its intended objective.
In addition to dream interpretation is the concept of making use of the dream. There must be some benefit to analyzing dreams (enjoyment, creativity, life improvement, etc.) or this action would not take place. An individual is the one who is living their life, is responsible for that life and receives the benefits of their dream interpretation. As a result, an individual forms a natural mechanism by which their past and present actions affect the future. An external psychology expert is not an integral element of that loop, but merely a disconnected observer and driving force. As a result, the application of dreams to the shaping of the future is necessarily distorted by the interface between dreamer and interpreter. Only under certain conditions will this arrangement allow a person to benefit from their dreams. In general, a person's distorted view of reality will be mirrored in a distorted interface with a psychology expert.
This argument can be strengthened by consideration of the following: every person's reality was formed by that person, based on their experiences in life. When something is true or untrue, the concept is tested by that individual until an internal model of truth is constructed. Such a model is unique to the person, and was created (at least in part) independently from other beings, including psychology experts. As a result, it is impossible for others to be aware of the complete details of such a model, especially to the point of providing guidance. Many elements of how a person relates to reality will always be known only by that person. Therefore, there exist certain elements of an individual's past, present and future path, for which only that person was and is in the loop. Only when a methodology is inserted into the loop (person enters data in, learns through history, processing of output) can their reality be transformed in a convergent manner. In addition, only with such an arrangement can errors in the interpretation be reduced, as the dreamer's awareness increases and becomes modeled in the capabilities of the tool, in a type of feedback loop. With respect to dream interpretation, there is no known method which combines world knowledge, self knowledge and an error correcting feedback loop. In addition, there is no known implementation of such on a computer system.
There is evidence in the prior art of using computers to aid in the diagnosing of patients with mental disorders, and to enter and store dream data to assist in this objective (U.S. Pat. No. 5,718,247 Frankel 1998). However, such examples simply acknowledge the importance of dreams, without providing a clear description of the methods to be employed. Generally, diagnostic references show a therapist as an essential part of the process and do not establish the patient as being empowered to autonomously perform analysis and make decisions. This is merely the traditional methods described above, with the additional use of public-domain computer concepts to enter, store and organize the patient's dream occurrences. With respect to psychotherapy, the concepts of (A) cultural differences, (B) closed-loop feedback, (C) customization and adaptation to unique users, (D) non-judgemental therapy, (E) life as a non-stationary process, (F) distortion due to the therapist, (G) automated dream interpretation, (H) analysis based on mathematical foundations, (I) dreams and dream histories as functions of time, (J) user/dreamer emotions and states as vector functions of time, (K) consideration of the dream data of other people in a patient's life/world and (L) providing therapy to an unlimited number of people concurrently are never discussed. Finally, it should be noted that dreams have broader application than use in diagnosing mental illness.
Regardless of the methodologies employed, the current state-of-the-art in dream interpretation does not support the sharing, use or storage of the dream content of a large number of individuals. As previously stated, some examples do involve the storage of dreams. However, these examples are directed toward obtaining data under the direction and control of a doctor, to assist in the diagnosis of mentally ill patients and not serve the specific interests and needs of the general population. There is no means established (A) to acquire the dreams of “normal”, uncategorized or unidentified people, or (B) for individuals (both “normal” and mentally ill) to share this therapist-controlled data outside of a doctor's office. Considering again the formulation of “expert knowledge” on dream interpretation, if it is accepted that each and every person contributes to the content and evolution of our world, life, etc., then each and every person's knowledge must be utilized to form an average, or typical interpretation of a specific dream element. Individuals, psychologists, and book authors using current methods, cannot make use of realtime information from the global population.
The traditional methods which form a part of the aforementioned examples are also limited in their scope. As previously stated, no known forms of dream interpretation employ a feedback mechanism to allow convergence of a user's dream interpretation with their reality. When applied toward helping an individual with psychological problems, experts attempt to form definitive action/reaction solutions to a problem which is present in an adaptive individual, living in a non-stationary environment. For example, when a person's physical and mental composition is altered by a prescribed drug, there is no means to address or even acknowledge that this “solution” may be in error. Conversely, when stable feedback mechanisms are employed, it is accepted that errors exist which converge to zero as time increases. Thus, the traditional dream interpretation techniques do not acknowledge that the means toward a solution are as meaningful and as important to the person's awareness as the ends achieved by those means. Finally, there is no means and process to (A) link advertising or helpful information with the direct subconscious thoughts of a person, and (B) specifically store and process large amounts of historical and current dream data when an individual records and analyzes dreams or consults with an expert. A computerized tool specifically designed for dream interpretation is well suited to both of these applications. Item (B) provides an immense capability in data fusion to achieve a multitude of objectives. Such a system is the only known means by which an individual's needs for dream analysis may be satisfied, while at the same time serving a community's or the nation's need for situational awareness.
The present invention is directed to solving these and other problems.